Furies of Alera
by Iora Blacklink
Summary: Why were the High Lords of Kalare so skilled at firecraft? Was it for the same reason the First Lords were so skilled at furycrafting in general? What was Kalus thinking when he sprung free of his volcano? Was he? How did Thana and Garados display such characteristically human things like insanity, love and marriage? Collection of one-shots of the Great Furies's character studies.
1. Prologue

Codex Alera is copyright Jim Butcher. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction.

* * *

Before Gaius Primus, there was nothing. Nothing that mattered. Not that the first peoples of their land didn't matter, but the land had no true awareness of them. Before Primus, Alera was nothing; she knew nothing. None of _them_ knew anything.

The central stones rumbled to themselves. The western fires hissed weakly in response, penned off from the rest of the world by the ice of the earliest of eras. Lightning split the sky in the south, but nothing cared. Nothing took shelter. The nearest peoples sheltered far away in their eastern jungle, not even knowing of the storm. The east gloried in its waters, which gave life to its inhabitants, but, at that time, could claim no life of their own. What trees that grew up north, free of the poisonous influence of the jungle people, had no movement to give but what the wind itself afforded them. Metal lay dormant beneath the roots of the land itself.

Then, the Romans come to Carna, landing in Alera, though it was not called that at the time. They were numerous and fascinating, with their industrious devices and unprecedented tactics. Stranger still was their artistry, which would bring the land to life.

From the west, they brought igneous rock, tempered and born in the heart of the earth of itself, the hottest fire imaginable. From the north, they transported soil with the remains of long-dead trees, newly-thawed from permafrost. The southern sands they gathered when the wind was low and did not sweep it away. From the east, they brought river rocks; they dug up metal from underneath their capital. To their ruler, the greatest stone carvers and artisans brought a gift of epic proportions: a map, brought to life by their exquisite shaping, every part perfect in geography, every part formed of the right stone.

Fire in rock called to wind in sand; water and wood in soil whispered to the remains of river's glory; metal underlay and stabilized; earth _was._ And, suddenly, or slowly, depending on whose measure of time you believed, Alera came to life. Then, again suddenly or again slowly, she showed herself.

"Bother, I've gone mad."

* * *

Stories and history would never speak of beings like Alera or even Alera herself, but the people did. Their eventual exclamation of "Great Furies!" lent evidence to that. And, while it was true that Alera herself was the most humanlike, the most balanced, of those beings, formed from all elements as she was, there were more of them. Ancient beyond measure, knowledgable beyond belief, massive beyond comprehension, powerful beyond imagination or dream.

Every single one of them was intelligent; every single one of them sane. Even Thana and Garados, though Alera could be forgiven for being mistaken on that point. She had spent so much time among humans that she'd started to act like them, think like them, talk like them, see the world like them, judge others by their standards. She'd assimilated so much of human culture and comprehension that she'd lost some of her own.

The Canim were not insane; their culture and instincts and ingrained thought processes, even their capacity for "magic," were simply alien.

The Maret were not insane; their culture and _chala_ and organization and language were simply incomprehensible.

The Great Furies were not insane; they simply were beyond the measure or comprehension of any who thought like mortal beings.


	2. Kalus 1

Codex Alera is copyright Jim Butcher. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction.

Mini-Pieces/Mini-Summary: Everybody knew that the city of Kalare and its ruling house was named after the fury Kalus. They were wrong. It was the other way around. Similarly, everybody knew that the true born High Lords and Ladies of Kalare had intrinsic firecrafting abilities, but not even the First Lords imagined that there was a specific reason, much less that that reason had a name.

* * *

Beneath the western mountain upon which one of Alera's larger cities sits, the being known as Kalus tried to slumber. It was becoming more and more difficult as the years/centuries/millennia went by. More and more difficult since _her_ blood stopped awakening in the features of her descendants. _She_ 'd given him everything; a home, a name, companionship. Something to actually _care_ about. Everything he had handed her paled in comparison, by _far_. Farther than the distance between his domain and his sister Thana's new-found home. ( _Relatively_ new, anyways. It had been long enough that Kalus had totally forgotten whether Garados or Thana was his technical sibling-in-law. They were just his brother and sister.) He had given _her_ nothing, nothing at all. _Her_ entire lifetime, blessed as she was with watercrafting, had not been even a blink of an eye in his reckoning. (Of course, he had no eye or eyes to blink, but that was semantics).

Grief rumbled deep within the fury's heart, and he hurried to quench it, though it was strange to think of a being of _fire_ trying to put one out. It was dangerous, he knew. To suppress when fire was meant to enflame–to smother what was meant to burn. But, he had been denying the natural order for long enough that it was almost instinctual.

It was difficult work: quenching grief, suffocating rage, crushing all strong emotions. Of _her_ , he was simply _fond_. He _cared_ about his siblings, but he felt fairly _diffident_ towards them; if he knew they were in trouble, it would be a toss-up whether he would try to help or not.

It was difficult work, sure, but all worthy things were. And that line of thought was a dangerous one; it had been one of _her_ favorite sayings, and Kalus was forced to smother yet another pang before it could grow into something even more deadly.

It was difficult, denying everything that he was. Fire _burned_. It could not be contained; it _would_ not be contained. Yet, here he was, containing himself. Or else...

He loathed defying natural processes. He _was_ a natural process, entropy incarnate; to a Great Fury, following natural processes was practically a sacred creed, perhaps even a habit. Yet, for _her_ , for _her_ people, for _her_ blood, he would do it.

This volcano would not erupt as long as the city of Kalare stood. He would not let it. Yet, year after year after year, it became harder and harder to contain himself; inevitably, he was waking up, bit by bit, which brought with it a whole host of other problems. Furies had neither dreams nor nightmares while they slumbered, so there were no dangerous emotions that could potentially disrupt the delicate internal balance he had built. Being awake...that was difficult. And it wasn't even a worthy thing, which _did not_ spark another treacherous piece of grief deep within.

Still, despite his denials and eternal struggles, he was drowning in the errant sparks of the feelings he used to toss around so casually. Emotions were strange, undeniable, inexorable things, and he was _fire_ _._ Of all of his siblings, he had the greatest disadvantage. Wind and wood found few concerns with the feelings of others. Earth was very specific in its use, to calm or arouse. Water _understood_ , and metal _tempered_ , but fire _enhanced_ , and every tiny, half-formed spark of emotion could erupt in a blaze that he, with all of his power, would be helpless to stop.

Because of this, Kalus actively ignored the happenings of the world above. Even the most prosperous, peaceful city had inhabitants that committed atrocities, people that were murdered on its streets. Seeing what humans, so-called Alerans, did to their own would only make his struggle worse.

* * *

Sometimes, usually every couple centuries, the High Lords of Kalare reached out to him, so Kalus did not find anything strange when this one did. What Kalarus Brencis (he'd always paid attention to their names if nothing else) did, however, was not expected.

He did not try to placate, to help restrain his strength as his predecessors had. Instead, he came to _enrage_. Insult after insult he flung at Kalus, though the man didn't seem to think Kalus was self-aware. The emotions behind the insults were the goal, carried and enhanced with the High Lord's own firecrafting (he'd inherited that from _her_ , if not his face), and Kalus found himself _very slightly amused_ by Brencis's pathetic attempts until the High Lord began to confront him more directly, passing on emotions of greater and greater intensity. The feelings themselves were not the problem; the problem was the sense of _self_ that Kalus had begun to pick up from the man. Through Kalarus Brencis's own firecrafting, Kalus began to sense the state of the city and its inhabitants.

Those that were not useful to the High Lord lived in squalor and helplessness; those that were useful lived in _fear_ , under constant threat and observation. Others, still, were not alive in the way that their peers were, and Kalus would wager the reason lay within the collars around their throats. Worse still, the man's son had been named well and raised to eventually equal his father in his monstrosity. The stirrings of rage became more difficult to chain.

This man had inherited nothing at all from _her._ His face was hard and harsh, his hair dark as _hers_ had never been, and naturally straight, though he wore it in elegant curls. His firecrafting was born not of the comforting, fiercely protective if slightly arrogant warmth _she_ had radiated; his care for his people could not even be called that. Perhaps he might not torture or murder the ones that were useful, at least not at first.

He stole from them; he lied to them; he betrayed them in thought and word and deed. And, in doing so, he betrayed _her_ memory, betrayed everything _she_ had stood for, everything _she_ had _been_. And that was not to be borne.

Livid rage stirred and simmered and _boiled_ , until all Kalus was conscious of were his own desperate, panicked attempts to belay it. Whatever he had done, Brencis was one of the only remaining connections to _her_. The people were as innocent, mostly, as _hers_ had been. Somewhere in the city were Julias and Brutuses and Catos, people who were just like _her_ friends and eventual husband, who he had known through _her_ in passing. For them, for their memories, and mostly for _her_ , he had to stay his hand.

But he couldn't, until he was offered help. So caught up in his panic and reminisces was Kalus that he didn't recognize the person who wielded the reverse firecrafting that took the edges off of his rage, the weak binding that nonetheless sufficed. All of his conscious thought was wrapped up in _not feeling,_ so Kalus didn't recognize the hand of Kalarus Brencis or deduce his plan.

* * *

The constant reverse firecrafting along with the binding, combined with Kalus's utter lack of will to do any harm to the city _she_ had built, made for an effective volcanic deterrent, but it was not to last.

Another furycrafting hand reached out to him, buoyed by someone–some _thing–_ that he recognized. Where the firecrafting had dampened, it stirred and enflamed, coaxing and insisting that he let his rage and pure, undiluted feelings _free_.

Though he knew that the First Lord, an enemy of the current High Lord, sought to destroy the city, he couldn't help but hope. Because Alera was his sister, the eldest and also the youngest of them all. And she'd spent all of her time since the first Gaius Primus watching over his descendants, over the First Lords and their heirs. If any of his siblings could understand, it would be her.

 _Kalus_ , she asked him _, why do you defy the natural order so?_ There was no compassion whatsoever in her tone, no flicker of understanding. He'd misjudged her badly.

It had been too long, so Kalus hadn't remembered Alera correctly. She was too balanced, too closely distant from the house of calculating, icy, duty-bound, yet protective First Lords. Though she knew the most about human culture of all of the Great Furies, even Kalus himself, she was only the best at _pretending_ to be human. At _being_ like a real Aleran soul, she was in fact the worst. In her, fire quenched water as water extinguished fire; stone stood up to wind as wind ground it to dust; metal chipped at wood as wood dampened metal. She was everything, all of the elements in harmony, but nothing. An empty shell. And the people she'd been closest to hadn't helped. The natural order mattered most to her; she flat-out refused to do anything that might defy it long-term. It was the reason why all of the help she offered to the house of Gaius had a price, a repercussion, though she could have voided such a so-called _necessity_. Yes, she knew humans best, and could coldly, flatly carry out the letter of their customs the way a politician would so carefully stick to the words of the law. The spirit of all cared nothing for the spirit of humanity, cared nothing for anything but the natural balance.

There would be no understanding here, or even an emotional response, none of the soft compassion he would have received from Nereus, none of Amaranth's blatantly difficult attempts at empathy, none Thana's rage at his unusual actions, none of Garados's rumbling irritation, none of Terra's begrudging respect. All he would receive was confusion. To Alera, defying the natural order was simply unthinkable. His other siblings regarded such a thing as a majority of humans regarded the law; they could break it, but they shouldn't. For Alera, there was no _could_ or _shouldn't_. Order _was_ , like the sun in the sky, like the stars on clear nights, like the cycle of the moon.

Without the words he had lost with his tight hold on his temper, he tried to plead with her, tried to make her understand. All she regarded him with was confusion and growing baffled betrayed.

 _This defies the order of things. It cannot continue forever. You must understand._ He did, but he didn't. Wind was fleeting, water changeable, earth stoic, metal eternal, wood quiet. Fire was _mortal_. It was born, it lived, and it died. As did people.

 _Please, Alera. Help me._ It wasn't so much word as a collection of thoughts bound together. He couldn't hold back for much longer, not with the fragile connection fraying, burning up piece by piece. Not without help.

 _You've grown too attached. It happens to the best of us_. An attempt to be understanding, compassionate, even gentle or kind totally missed the entire _point_. He was _fire_. He didn't leave until he burnt out. Humanity wasn't a disease, crows take it!

He was hanging off a cliff, slipping off inch by inch, and he let go with one hand to reach it up to Alera, begging against his pride for help. She smiled back and gently reached down to pry off his other hand, and he fell.

He'd delayed the volcano for much too long, and he could fight no longer, especially not with his _sister_ , the most powerful of them all, working against him.

He lost his grip, and flame and earth roared in tandem.

Death reigned.

* * *

A.N. Alera strikes me as a Mother Nature type: technically benevolent, but not kind or fair. Nature isn't nice. Nature isn't fair. She might feel some sort of general _affection_ for the people of her land, but she's not the type to actually _care_. The closest she came to an actual human relationship was Gaius Primus, her sort-of father/brother, and Tavi (when she was dying and maybe wanted to make up for what she missed all of her conscious life). She probably came off as pretty cruel in this story, and, from Kalus's point of view, she was, but she wasn't trying to be. Kalus's attachment to the descendants of the mysteries _her_ (the original High Lady Kalare [yes, lady] whose background I may expand upon sometime) was in fact dangerous to him. If he had held the volcano back for too long, he could have burned his very identity away as well as most of the continent (think Lake Toba or Yellowstone eruption). She was doing what was _necessary_ for Kalus, the people of Alera, and the land itself. Her (and the behind the scenes Gaius Sextus's) actions were the very same as what happened in Captain's Fury and had the same morality as those actions. Probably, Kalus was very probably not nearly as benevolent or humanlike as he was portrayed as here, but his character and those of most semi-intelligent and intelligent furies were never really developed in the books, so there's a lot of room for interpretation.


End file.
